This week, I like to think that Washington, D.C. has that back-to-school feeling,

senators and members of Congress, heading back to the Capitol, getting ready to do the people's work.

Slate's Jim Newell. He is here to burst my bubble.

Everyone will come back and, you know, they're going to have a lot of work to do on government spending bills,

and they may want to take up some gun legislation.

We'll see if there's still the movement to do that.

But it's not really too dramatic.

I don't know.

People just come back pretty quickly and pick up right where they left off, which is doing very little.

Jim lives in the muck of the swamp. So he can see this vast disconnect between what politicians say and what they're actually able to do.

Just try watching a democratic debate with this guy. He's like, Medicare for

all? Free college? They can't even reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act over here.

I mean, being a Congress reporter, like, has ruined me, you know, in terms of, you know,

having, like, any hope, really. Just, I watch it. I'm just like, this is never going to happen.

You know,

you can promise everything. But if you don't change the rules, the chances of it happening are pretty slim. One of those rules that some people in Washington are starting to think we should

change is the filibuster. That's because it's become all but a requirement that legislation passed the

Senate with 60 votes instead of a simple majority. I mean, make the case. Like, why should we

eliminate the filibuster? Well, I think right now we have a system where we have an election. One party

does really well. They take over the government, and then for some reason,

nothing that they campaigned on can get through Congress. I think people don't really understand this, and they start to wonder what's the point of these elections, if nothing could happen.

You know, why do we even bother doing this? It might encourage people to participate more in the

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